What I think this Don't Say Gay nonsense is really about

[EnergizedLib]

In my opinion, this is a different kind of grooming, a different kind of indoctrination. This is allowing parents to raise their kids to be bigots. With no counter viewpoint at school, kids might not see a more enlightened world to learn kindness and to respect others who are different than them, especially considering how mean kids can be (I was a kid at one point, and they could be nasty).

The other side might say this empowers parents, that this is the parents' job. In theory, that makes sense. In actuality, how many parents are neglectful parents? How many of them don't attend to them, or raise them to have such certain viewpoints or be ignorant about things? Is it so bad to teach children that there are people different than them and that they deserve kindness and respect just like everybody else does? You can do that without encouraging them to be sexual or to feel romantic towards a certain set of people.

As I've said many times on here, kids learn things in school that is not confined to just an academic curriculum. And I've witnessed that teachers are more than simply just teachers, they're there as support systems, too, and those who genuinely care about their students not in terms of just academics, but also as people. By forcing teachers to out gay students to their parents would be removing someone you can trust into maybe someone you can't trust in a certain situation, the stigma that shouldn't happen from parents, but too many times does. It's apparently the parents' job to teach kids things, but it's not a gay student's job to come forward to their parents, if they wish to do so at all?

And how about with sex education? The problem with these legislatures is that they govern according to how they wish things would be, rather than how things actually are. Again, you would think, in theory, this should be the job of the parent, but what about when the parent doesn't do their job? Teenagers hook up, they're going to get together and have sex. If I was a parent, and I had a kid in high school, I can't say I'd actively encourage this, but I can't say my would-be teen would always be there if I looked over my shoulder, couldn't stop them in all instances if they made such a decision. I know I'd want them, and other people's kids, for their benefit, to use protection and to have safe sex, if that were to happen, to avoid teen pregnancy and STDs. You can encourage abstinence, but I know teens rebel. I know because I was one myself. There's that angst and wanting to rebel against your family.

It's also important to remember that people are going to be out of school longer than they're in it. It's important that we don't fail students not just in academics, but in life lessons on preparedness, real world issues, being tolerant and respectful of others and also teaching real, actual history and not cherrypicked, whitewashed history, so that they don't repeat the mistakes of their ancestors.

These draconian laws in Florida and other backward red states (redundant) doesn't protect kids, but rather makes it easier to set them up for failure and does them a disservice.